WCA September 2013

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60 Wire & Cable ASIA – September/October 2013
❖ Mr Onishi observed construction crews working on the
area around the shear keys and the adjoining bearings
to prepare for installation of the so-called saddles: steel
cables that will do the work of bolts by fastening the
shear keys to the crossbeam.
But Thomas Devine, a professor of materials science
and engineering at the University of California, Berkeley,
told him that it was premature to adopt the saddle
solution before engineers had ascertained the cause of
the hydrogen-assisted cracking in the bolts.
“It’s a matter of common sense as well as good
engineering practice that before you attempt to
remediate a problem, you define the problem,” Dr
Devine said, adding that only full (ie time-consuming)
tests on the 32 bolts would yield an answer.
❖ Political and economic pressure to devise and apply a
fix is immense. The eastern stretch of the Bay Bridge
was one of the three busiest bridges in the nation,
handling about 280,000 cars a day.
The longer-range consideration noted by Ms Worth is
even more compelling. Government seismologists have
said there is a two-in-three probability that a major
quake, perhaps originating on the Hayward fault which
runs under the Bay Area, could hit before 2033, and with
even more devastating force than in 1989.
If, in the run-up to Labor Day, little else about the project
seemed clear, Steve Heminger forthrightly called the
bolt failure “catastrophic.” The executive director of the
Oakland-based MTC told the Times: “It is very unusual
in bridge construction that you have an element of the
structure fail at such a rate.”
❖ Mr Heminger, who also chairs the Toll Bridge
Program Oversight Committee, an umbrella
organisation overseeing construction, made a further
point. In addition to establishing what caused 32
bolts to fail, officials must decide whether some
2,000 other bolts – similar in design but with no
apparent problems – could be inspected and
modified, if needed, after the new span is opened to
the public.
Elsewhere in steel . . .
❖ Accuride Corp (Evansville, Indiana), a supplier of
steel components to the North American commercial
vehicle market, announced a $5.8 million expansion of
powder coating capacity at its Henderson, Kentucky,
manufacturing plant. Company officials said that the
expansion would include a new, advanced-technology
coating line at the steel wheel production facility.
Bob Matyi of Platts reported (21st June) that the
company has preliminary approval from the Kentucky
Economic Development Finance Authority for up to
$600,000 in tax incentives. The Henderson facility,
originally a part of Firestone Steel Products, was opened
in 1974.
❖ How do you transport a 50-foot-wide, 15-ton
electromagnet to its new home 3,200 miles away?
The essential first step would be to establish that the
magnet, the largest in the world when it was built by
scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New
York in the 1990s, is inert. (It was.)
No longer essential at Brookhaven, the magnet
would exhibit no magnetic properties until plugged
in at another research institution funded by the US
Department of Energy: Fermi National Accelerator
Laboratory in Illinois.
The next concern would be for the magnetic
ring, constructed of steel and aluminium with
superconducting coils inside. According to Fermi it
cannot be taken apart or twisted more than about
one-eighth inch without irreparable damage to the coils.
In a five-week journey, commenced 22nd June, the
secured magnet was moved by specially designed
truck and barge to the shore of Long Island; then down
the East Coast, around the tip of Florida, and up the
Mississippi, Illinois, and Des Plaines rivers to Chicago.
The $3 million moving costs may be deemed a bargain
when compared with the $30 million estimate to
construct from scratch the electromagnet needed for an
upcoming experiment at Fermi.
Airline industry notes
❖ Delta Air Lines opened a $1.4-billion terminal at John F
Kennedy Airport on 24 th May, strengthening its position
in the battle for the lucrative New York travel market. The
facility replaces the dilapidated Pan Am terminal, built in
1960, that Americans, and New Yorkers in particular, had
come to consider an embarrassment.
According to US Customs and Border Protection, JFK
is still the primary gateway to the US, having seen
13.1 million inbound international passengers last
year. Miami International Airport was second, at 9.8
million, followed by Los Angeles International Airport at
8.3 million.
Delta, the largest airline at Detroit Metro Airport,
carries about 2.1 million of the international passengers
arriving at JFK, more than any other carrier, according
to airport operator the Port Authority of New York and
New Jersey.
❖ Raymond L Conner, the chief executive of Boeing’s civil
aircraft division, acknowledged on 16th June that the
company was still fielding questions about measures
taken to eliminate risks associated with the lithium-ion
batteries on the Boeing 787, known as the Dreamliner.
In separate incidents in January, smoke and fire erupted
from batteries in two of the standing aircraft, prompting
a three-month grounding of the entire Dreamliner fleet.
Speaking to reporters on the eve of the Paris Air Show,
Mr Conner said of the blow that the battery troubles had
dealt the company’s reputation: “It’s unfortunate, but it’s
just reality. We have to address it head-on.”